Alex Minovici wins Inaugural FCHI Undergraduate Honors Award
Undergraduate Honors Fellow and history major Alex Minovici recently graduated from Emory College, where her thesis project received Highest Honors.
In this conversation with Communications & Outreach Coordinator Karl-Mary Akre, Alex discusses her thesis project and bringing her home country of Romania to the Fox Center's yearlong discussion on Democracy: Past, Present, Future.
KARL-MARY AKRE: Congratulations on winning the inaugural FCHI Undergraduate Honors Award! Can you tell me more about your thesis project and its focus?
ALEX MINOVICI: My thesis, titled "Sînge și Spaimă: The 1989 Revolution and the Politics of Violence in Socialist and Post-Socialist Romania," explores the continuum of violence in modern Romanian history in three phases: (1) the physical and psychological violence used by the socialist state to shape and control the Romanian people from 1947-1989; (2) the violence that characterized the Romanian Revolution in December 1989 on behalf of both the state and the revolting people; and (3) the continuity of violence in post-socialist Romania, enabled by a process of state-sanctioned remembering and forgetting of the trauma caused by the Revolution and the previous four decades of the Romanian socialist regime.
Having grown up in post-socialist Bucharest, I was interested primarily in finding a tangible source for the present-day political disillusionment that many Romanian people share and that I personally experienced. I found that the political struggles faced by Romania today, as a relatively young democracy, can be traced back to the political transition that took place immediately after the Revolution and the new regime's refusal to hold perpetrators/enablers of violence accountable for their actions.
How does your thesis project intersect with the Fox’s 2024-25 theme of “Democracy: Past, Present, Future”?
The very crux of the argument in my thesis hinges on Romania's transition to a democratic regime. After over four decades of suppressive, authoritarian rule, the Romanian people had to reckon with a new political landscape where they were free to express themselves and their political wants. However, that transition was inherently subversive: the new leaders presented themselves as saviors ushering in a clean slate, despite having clear and direct ties to the previous regime. They still turned to violent means to ensure that their power remained unshakable, not unlike the socialist state's instincts for its entire existence.
In my third chapter and my epilogue, I argued that what truly gives Romanian people power in their new democracy is remembering the violence and trauma with the express purpose of holding state officials accountable; refusing to forget abuses. Memory can be an act of resistance. Along these lines, I feel as if my thesis is part of a broader effort to document, remember, and respect the trauma that Romanians experienced in recent history.
How did the Fox Center fellowship impact your process and work over the past academic year?
I had a wonderful time with the Fox Center, of course! When undertaking such a long and grueling project, community is truly invaluable. I especially appreciated the students in my cohort, who gave me advice and guidance before I even had words on a page all the way until my thesis' final submission.
It is also special to have a community of scholars at different stages in this academic process, and I can say that I've had several illuminating and compelling conversations with the rest of the fellows and affiliates of the Fox Center that have defined the way I approached researching, reading, and writing in my senior year (even outside of my thesis!). What's more is that the Fox Center gave me a physical space where I could genuinely focus on my work, especially on days where the volume of work that I needed to do seemed almost insurmountable.
What does it mean to you to win the FCHI Undergraduate Honors Award?
I'm both flattered and surprised to win this award! While I've been working on this thesis for maybe a year and a half, I've spent a bit longer studying Romanian history while at Emory and Oxford College even though there were no experts and little to no easy-to-obtain resources that aligned with my interests. I'm ultimately so grateful that, in the process of compiling and synthesizing my research so far, I've had the opportunity to share my country's history with people who might not have known much about Romania before, and that despite not being familiar, people have found it interesting!
I reject the notion that some regions or time periods are more important to study than others. The history of Romania may not have gotten as much academic attention as the history of Russia or the United States, but none of these countries exist in a vacuum. What happens in Romania can inform what happens not just in the broader East European region, but the rest of the globe. This is why I was so happy to join the Fox Center and bring Romania to a global discussion on democracy; and it is also why I am doubly honored to receive an award from the Fox Center for my research!
Do you have any words of encouragement for undergraduate students who want to apply to the Fox Center fellowship?
I can only encourage that everybody who has had even a fleeting thought about applying to the Fox Center to indulge it. Don't compare yourselves and the worth of your interests to that of others. Rather, focus on what is meaningful to you while encouraging what is meaningful to your peers and mentors! I think that this is the origin of the most compelling scholarship, and this reflection comes solely from my own awe at the brilliant work that all my peers in the Fox Center have produced this year. Everyone is so awesome! I'm so grateful to have known them.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.